Pavley's new fracking bill includes possible moratorium

Pavley’s bill would require businesses to notify neighbors before fracking.

Contributed photo

SACRAMENTO — Ratcheting up efforts to regulate hydraulic fracturing in the oil and gas industry, state Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, amended a bill Monday so it would impose a de facto moratorium on fracking if state regulators do not promptly complete a comprehensive study by Jan. 1, 2015.

The measure, SB 4, would require those conducting fracking to get a permit. It also would instruct the secretary of the Natural Resources Agency to commission an “independent scientific study” of fracking and bar the issuance of permits until that study has been completed and peer-reviewed.

Pavley said she does not intend the bill to be a moratorium but included the tight deadline to motivate the Brown administration.

“We want to give them all of the impetus they need to complete the study, or they themselves will create the moratorium,” she said.

The bill would also require oil companies to tell neighboring property owners 30 days before a fracking operation is to take place, inform the state about all chemicals they will use in a given location, and provide for ongoing monitoring of groundwater quality near wells being fracked.

Hydraulic fracturing involves the high-pressure injection of a mixture of water, chemicals and sand into a well to stimulate

fracturing of subsurface rock to release deposits of oil and natural gas embedded in the rock. Its use has skyrocketed around the country in recent years and is largely responsible for a surge in domestic natural gas production.

The practice has stirred environmental concerns, particularly about possible contamination of groundwater from the chemicals injected into wells. Those concerns have led New York and New Jersey to adopt temporary, partial moratoriums.

Pavley said the industry “should welcome this study to as a way to convince the public that their health and safety will not be compromised.”

Pavley, whose district includes eastern Ventura County, is chairwoman of the Natural Resources and Water Committee, the panel that likely will give the bill its first review.

An oil industry spokesman assailed the bill’s new provisions, calling the proposed study duplicative and unnecessary.

“Hydraulic fracturing is one of the most studied commercial activities on the face of the planet,” said Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Association.

He said an extensive study done near Inglewood two years ago at the request of local agencies produced conclusive evidence of the safety of fracking under controlled conditions.

“We have all the studies out there, and I don’t know why some legislators choose to ignore them,” Zierman said.

The state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources has issued what it calls “a discussion draft” of proposed regulations that would for the first time in California establish specific rules for fracking. Currently, fracking is regulated only to the extent that all oil and gas wells in the state are.

In response to a letter from Pavley and Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, the division has committed to conducting a hearing in Ventura on the draft regulation. No date has been set, but it will likely take place in the very near future, as two of the four scheduled hearings have already been held.

Zierman said 85 percent to 90 percent of fracking done in California takes place in Kern County, mostly at one oil field that does not sit on potable water supplies and where there are no competing commercial activities that could be disturbed.

“It employs a lot of people and pays a lot of taxes, yet people from outside the area want to shut it down,” he said.

The industry last year established a voluntary reporting system on a website called FrackFocus.com. It lists 39,000 registered well sites nationwide, including 728 in California and 12 in Ventura County.

Industry representatives say that what they call “conventional” hydraulic fracturing, done deep beneath the Earth in reservoirs that lie below cap rock that separates them from aquifers closer to the surface, has been safety done for decades.

Environmentalists say technological advances that allow for the liquid mixture to be placed under much higher pressure than in the past and the use of more powerful chemicals has made today’s fracking far different from and more dangerous than what has taken place before.